//------------------------------//
// Requiem 
// Story: The Bards of Mares 
// by Reviewfilly 
//------------------------------//

In a land freshly conquered, bonfires littered the earth, belching foul smoke into the night. Five hundred received the same question and, despite every promise and every threat, have given the same answer.

Five hundred sang their curse till the flames took their voice. Not one of them could bring themselves to say “hail.”

Far away, from where only the distant wisps of smoke could be seen, the Crescent Queen tossed and turned in her bed, the very dreams that she held herself master of evading her. A noise she couldn’t block out no matter how strongly she concentrated kept her from drifting off into sleep.

Finally she had enough and with a strong tug of her magic a pony stumbled into her tent. She looked around dazed from the sudden fall before realizing whose presence she was in. With panic in her eyes, she clambered to her hooves in a clumsy attempt to prostrate herself. Before she could even say anything, the Queen spoke in a voice endlessly tired.

“Get rid of this noise. Have my general know that I’ll hang him myself if I cannot get my sleep.”

The retainer nodded quickly and scurried out. She did not dare ask what noise the Queen spoke of. From what she could hear, the camp was as quiet as it could be.

It didn’t take long until the Queen’s message was relayed around.

“Hear ye! Now dies the cur that causes a sound to occur! Our Queen cannot rest!”

Silence sat upon the camp like a heavy, damp blanket. Not even the crickets dared to chirp. All sat still in their tents, hardly daring to even breathe, let alone sleep in fear of their snoring rousing the Queen’s anger.

And yet in her head the noise persisted. No matter if she buried her face below her blankets, if she plugged her ears with her hooves, even her strongest spells had no effect. It grew only louder and louder.

And so, like a string too tightly wound, she snapped. The quiet was slashed in two by her screams.

“Ah! Music! I want music right now! Bring out the instruments! Flutes, horns, drums, all of it!” she wailed. “I hear their curses, I see their glare!”

The camp exploded into sound. And yet, high above the cacophony, the shrill call of trumpets, and cries of strings, a mote of light sung into the void with voices of five hundred martyrs plus one.